Just in Case: an Aquarium Habit

Why do aquarists change water?Not how.Not how often.Not how much.Just… why.Just in Case is a quiet, ironic look at one of the most unquestioned habits in aquarium keeping. Through observation, repetition, and everyday scenes, this book explores how water changes become routine, ritual, obligation — and eventually tradition.There are no instructions here.No percentages.No solutions.Instead, this book follows the gesture itself: how it is learned, repeated, justified, shared, and rarely examined. Buckets are filled. Water moves. Aquariums adapt. Life inside the glass continues, largely indifferent to the rituals built around it.Written as a reflective essay with subtle humor, Just in Case is not about doing things differently — but about noticing why we do them at all.This book is for aquarists who have ever:followed a routine without remembering when it became necessaryperformed a water change even when everything looked fineexplained the habit to someone else with total confidencewondered, briefly, whether the aquarium needed it as much as they didIt offers no answers.Only distance.And sometimes, that is enough to start asking better questions.